Portland Mayor Sam Adams supports bill banning plastic bags

Portland Mayor Sam Adams has signed on to state efforts to ban single-use plastic shopping bags at checkout counters.

The mayor submitted a letter last week to the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, urging lawmakers to pass a bill that prohibits the bags. The committee is scheduled to take up Senate Bill 1009 in work session this Thursday.

Adams first proposed banning the bag when he was commissioner but dropped it after businesses complained and consumers recoiled from the recession. Last week, he renewed talks with key grocers’ pointman, Joe Gilliam.

Grocers would prefer to encourage shoppers to buy multi-use bags rather than outlaw any kind of bag. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality warns that both single-use plastic and brown paper bags have environmental downsides.

Mayoral spokesman Roy Kaufmann declined to say what Adams would do if lawmakers drop the proposal in this short session.